Recent Church Gunman Once Escaped From Mental Health Hospital

According to the New York Times, the gunman who killed 26 people in a rural Texas church on Sunday once escaped from a psychiatric hospital. The escape occurred when he was in the Air Force after he made numerous death threats against his superiors and smuggled weapons onto the base in 2012.

Police took Devin Kelly, the man who killed 26 people this weekend, into custody in El Paso, where he planned to flee on a bus after escaping from his psychiatric facility. He escaped from Peak Behavioral Health Services in Santa Tereza, New Mexico after sneaking firearms onto Holloman Air Force Base. On top of sneaking these weapons onto the base, he had also made death threats to his military superiors.

The NYT reports that Kelley was suffering from "mental disorders" and was "attempting to carry out death threats" against "his military chain of command." Kelley was supposedly a "danger to himself and others," especially after being caught smuggling guns onto the airforce base. This police report was published on Tuesday by KPRC, a Houston television media. After escaping, El Paso police eventually found him in the terminal.

It was one year after escaping from this psychiatric facility that he again pleaded guilty, but this time in a military court to repeatedly assaulting his wife and her son, a toddler. For this crime, he was sentenced to a year in Navy prison.

People have been trying to figure out the motive behind this heinous act. Indeed, it is difficult to fathom what motivated Mr. Kelly's shooting at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs. Authorities have been unable to unlock his cell phone and reports have claimed that the shooting was caused by a personal dispute. Law enforcement officers recovered Kelley's phone and have sent it to the F.B.I. laboratory in Quantico, Virginia for examination.

The shooting on Sunday was carried out by 26-year-old Patrick Kelley and is being called the worst mass shooting in Texas history, as well as the worst church shooting in American history. A local gun owner is reported to have opened fire on Kelley with a rifle, thereby preventing him from taking more lives, the Daily Caller reports.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and families in today’s horrible…attack,” Trump said, according to the Daily Caller. “In dark times, and these are dark times, such as these, Americans do what they do best: they pull together.”

“We join hands, we lock arms, and through the tears and through the sadness, we stand strong. All Americans pray to God to help the wounded and the families of the victims,” Trump said.